


Him, Her, and Them (And The Man Teaching Them All How To Protect Each Other)

by Child_of_Harpy



Category: Naruto
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Implied Time Travel, Melancholy fluff, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Uzumaki Naruto, Possible Codependency, Team Dynamics, anyway enjoy this garbage that i wrote because i was listening to "home" from undertale ost, apparently there's no good word to replace it when referring to individuals in a group of three, fluffy wish fulfillment of team 7 being cute instead of trying to kill each other, im so dumb jesus christ, kakashi doubting himself, overuse of "each other", team 7 fluff, these sweet baby ninja are all very good friends, they/them Uzumaki Naruto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-06 17:29:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18393029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Child_of_Harpy/pseuds/Child_of_Harpy
Summary: Kakashi thinks his cute little students are oddly close. They act almost as extensions of each other- Sasuke the prickly outer defense, Sakura the softer inner stabilizer, and Naruto the vulnerable heart of it all, all of them equally important to each other.It'd be sweet if it wasn't so painful, if they didn't look at each other like it was their last day alive together.





	1. Chapter 1

"Sakura-chan, are we gonna get ramen today?" Naruto asks, with a cute lilt to their voice.

"Mmm, yeah, it's been a while, hasn't it? What do you think, Sasuke-chan?"

It takes Sasuke a second to reply. "Sure." It's short, to the point, but it's still friendly, in a weird Sasukeish kind of way.

Kakashi is walking a few paces behind the three of them. It's after training hours, the sun setting and painting everything in warm reds and golds. His genin chat easily with each other, talking like they've known each other their whole lives. It's sweet. They certainly get along much better than most other genin teams Kakashi's seen in his time. In fact, they're oddly close; almost never away from each other (at least not that Kakashi's seen) and acting sort of as a collective- Sasuke the prickly outer defense, Sakura the soft-but-sturdy inner foundation, and Naruto the vulnerable, soft heart of it all.

It would be sweet, but they always get these _looks_ on their faces- like it's their last day together, like any moment the ground will fall out from under them and they'll never see their friends again (family, Kakashi's mind unhelpfully supplies).

But still.

It's cute, Kakashi thinks as he sits down with his students at Naruto's favorite ramen place, the blond genin laughing happily (their laugh managed to sound very hearty despite not being very loud) and thanking the vendor for the food before joyfully digging in.

No matter how the three of them look at each other, no matter how they cling to each other and talk in hushed and gentle tones (especially to Naruto, who flinches at every loud noise and cries easily), no matter how wistful they look when they think Kakashi isn't looking, it's fine for now.

He's perfectly content to let them be, even though his mind screams at him to think of how utterly _devastated_ they'll be if one of them dies. 

He's weak, but...

Maybe just this once, he'll let himself be weak.


	2. Let's Just Try And Take A Few Steps (Baby Steps Are Better Than No Steps)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto spend the night together at Naruto's apartment.
> 
> They say time is a flat circle, but it feels more like a jumble of messed of squiggles. 
> 
> It doesn't matter, though. They have each other. That's more than enough.

Not long after the remains of genin Team 7 arrived in the past, they had realized something unfortunate: they were children again. Naruto seemed immediately unsettled (though all of them were, it's mostly just that Naruto was more open with their emotions). They were all, in fact, very unsettled by this turn of events. 

What would they do?

The first thing they did was start to head over to Sasuke's old house, but they didn't get very far before they collectively decided that that was a _bad_ idea, actually, and turned right around to Sakura's place.

At the front door, Sakura seemed to freeze up ( _her parents' bodies, crushed under the remains of their house after Pein's attack, their blood mingling with everything else on the ground and becoming indistinguishable-_ )

so they turn around a third time.

Naruto's apartment is small, they live alone in this building. There's no one else there. 

Which makes it perfect for Team 7. 

One might expect that a young girl like Sakura and a priviliged clan heir like Sasuke would be rather disgusted by the state of Naruto's building, it was grungy and dusty, cobwebs in the lobby, creaking with every breeze. However, no matter how young the three of them appeared to be, they were still Team 7: the three of them had once spent a month in a chasm after the world began to end, living off of cave moss and mineral water from the ceiling.

A dirty old apartment building was still a building. The walls were even intact.

Naruto's room itself is surprisingly nice. There are signs, of course- this is not the home of an adult or even a slightly responsible teenager, but a lonely child with no family to speak of, with no way to know how to take care of themself. It's a little run-down, but it could be a lot worse, and it's all around perfectly comfy for the survivalists of Team 7.

Naruto makes them some cup ramen (it's almost too much to eat after so long having almost nothing in their stomachs) and they settle their small bodies close to each other on Naruto's bed, which is in the corner of the room.

When they're done, they squeeze close to each other under Naruto's thin blanket, but it's not a problem even in Fire Country late autumn, because they're _together_ , and they've been colder before.

Together, on a real bed, their bodies fed and healthy... it's the best sleep they've had in years.


	3. All The Time In The World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi doesn't know what he expected. 
> 
> Well, at least there probably can't be any more big surprises.
> 
> What's more surprising than time travel?
> 
> (for EternalSurvivor.)

"We're... uhhh, well, from the- future, technically? It's sort of the past for us, but it's the future for you... hmm, maybe, what, nine or ten years in the future?" After a lot of nervous buildup and not being able to speak, Kakashi had sort of thought that Sakura was trying to come out to him as a lesbian or trans or something, and it would have made more sense- genin often came out to their jounin-sensei instead of their parents (especially if those parents were civilians) and ninja as a whole were surprisingly more open-minded than a lot of other groups (there wasn't much point in discriminating against someone when they were either your valuable teammate, your client, or someone you were about to kill).

That being said, coming out to Kakashi as a _time traveler_ (all three of them were!) was considerably more distressing.

Naruto speaks up, quiet like they always are. "Uhm, do you believe us? I don't know how we can prove it to you... ah, Sasuke? Can you still do that- no, that's bad for your eyes..."

Geez, what has Kakashi gotten himself into? He had already thought his students were a little weird, but _this_?

What was he going to do?

His students -his _traumatized, time-traveling students_ \- fidget nervously in the their spots in front of him. 

What is he going to do about this?

Wait...

"Why are you telling me? Why- why tell anyone?" his voice falters halfway through his question, but nobody says anything.

Sasuke is the one to speak this time. "We need your help."

This blows Kakashi's mind. _They_ need _his_ help. The three capable (if somewhat war-torn) shinobi who managed to _travel back in time_ needed Kakashi's help.

"What could you possibly need my help with?"

There's a long pause. Sakura has an arm around Naruto's shoulder, Naruto has averted their eyes (Kakashi can't quite make out their face) and Sasuke seems to stare through him, reading him with an eerie sense of judgement.

But...

These are his students. It's incredible, unbelievable, absolutely outlandish, but _Kakashi_ wants to help them.

Finally, Kakashi speaks again. "I've got a lot of work to do with you three, huh?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've been wanting to have it so this story illustrates a kind of feeling of... like, kakashi has sort of settled. his world is small right now. he's taken on a genin team, it's not wartime, it's peaceful. whereas team 7's genin can't settle. like, they're always on edge, pretty much never relaxed, especially naruto, who flinches when people touch them (even sakura & sasuke, if it's too sudden) and all three of them jump at loud noises. they've been staying at naruto's apartment, sasuke hasn't been to the uchiha compound except to pick up his clothes and other things. sakura's parents don't know where she goes at night, and combined with training time in the day, she's almost never home. 
> 
> anyway, basically, kakashi's world is rocked by the revelation that his sweet little genin have trauma from the end of the world.
> 
> (also, the timeline here is basically that after pein's attack, nagato died before he could bring anyone back. from there, madara and akatsuki brought back the juubi p easily and then kaguya, and team 7 and a few other konohans just sort of ran around the world hiding from kaguya and trying to find a way to "go back". just in case anyone's interested, naruto realised they were nonbinary a little before pein's attack. sasuke came back from orochimaru a year before pein's attack, itachi died of his disease before sasuke could fight him. basically everything went totally the fuck wrong and so the only option aside from death was to bend space-time a little bit. a lot bit.)

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed, as you might have seen in the tags, i wrote this mostly because i have been on a naruto kick recently and "Home" from the Undertale ost makes me feel things. wanted some team 7 fluff and i also wanted to write nonbinary naruto because i dont really see any of that? and i relate to naruto in a lot of ways and this makes it even better, dont look to far into that statement, its not suspicious at all i promise.\
> 
> anyway, if you want me to write something specific, feel free to ask me in the comments. i might get around to it eventually. have a good day.


End file.
